For want of a nail
by Aoi24
Summary: A person dies and the world is changed. Dadan and his charges in the years before when they hide deeper than before because there is no-one left to protect them. AU. Character death. Pre-chapter 568 and the full revelation of Dadan. COMPLETE


A/N: Semi-inspired by a prompt 'In another life' but mostly I just wanted to run with this idea. (Go, be free and frolic in the fields of inspirations!!)

I'm hanging in for the introduction of Dadan. I mean, c'mon; the guy practically raised both brothers in canon.

Curiously enough, I'm a fan of fem!Dadan because it seems to be so much fun and I would love if she was grandma monkey. XD

I thought I'd posted this here but clearly not.

* * *

A change can be a subtle thing.

It doesn't have to be something as magnificent as a public execution the entire world recognised to really be a rallying cry in a flimsy disguise.

It can merely be something as simple as Sanji deciding not to cook the salmon today and do the pork instead or Zoro deciding to start his workout with katas instead of weight training.

It might not make any significant change at all and merely offer a change of pace which is good and discourages the onset of certain types of insanity, the kind generally seen at least once every six months in the marine archives by pencil-pushers who simply cannot take the insidious monotony anymore and decide to end it all. (Which they do in increasingly creative and horrific ways although it fails to discourage the betting pool.)

Changes can be bigger even if at the time they don't seem important at all.

In another time Bellemere never found Nojiko and simply left the island, the service and returned to her hometown to wallow in Post Traumatic Stress.

She leaned on her old friends and neighbours to get her through this time and when Arlong came she swallowed her pride and paid the fee to protect her unborn child while covertly sending message to old contacts in the marines which ended up salvaging the whole affair much quicker than in the other world.

In our case here however, it was a very large change indeed. One that tilted the axis of the world.

Monkey D. Garp died.

__

Dadan would never forgive Garp for dying.

It truly was the worst thing he had ever done in his long (although not quite long enough) and adventurous life.

Granted the crazy bastard certainly didn't do it on purpose but it still was the worst possible thing he could have done, far worse than demolishing half of Marineford battling Shiki or letting his own son become one of the most dangerous anti-government elements since the lost century.

(Personally Dadan _really_ thought the worst thing he ever did was lose a drinking contest to Gol D Roger which he never should have been conned into in the first place, those blithering _imbeciles_.)

Whatever the details were, Garp really couldn't _afford_ to die, there was far too much resting on him.

But he did.

Leaving his toddling grandsons in the hands of Dadan.

__

Although it wasn't publicised the most dangerous aspect of the Grand Line was not, in fact, the inclement weather or the marauding forces but the diseases.

People in the four blues seemed to forget this strangely enough.

Garp _knew_ this but he still didn't escape this threat.

Three days after contracting the virus he was dead and his body quickly burned to prevent the spread of disease.

He was given a full funeral with all of the appropriate pomp and setting suitable for a marine hero.

Dadan didn't attend.

Neither did any of the remaining members of his family.

__

Dadan drank, cursed the heavens and 'that damned irresponsible bastard' while at the same time being grateful that Garp had arranged for his will and hence the funds they would need.

Dragon didn't do anything overtly obvious but Ivankov noted that he seemed to be brooding at an unusually intense rate. (Inazuma calculated it to be exactly a 69% increase on his normal levels but still a good 39% less than last year and the events with his son and deceased lover.) He stayed outside for a day and a night furiously staring into the Eastern horizon letting the rain pour down over him.

Many pirates across the seas drank and celebrated the death of such a dangerous enemy. These were the men and women that history would quickly forget.

Rayleigh returned to Shakky and they discussed it over a bottle of whiskey. Neither was quite sure why exactly it worried them but in some strange way they knew that the death of Garp was going to be very dangerous in a different way to the death of Roger.

Garp was a dangerous foe but he was an honourable man and one they'd be more willing to fight than certain others.

Whitebeard snorted and his commanders caught an unusually intense expression flicker across his face momentarily when he read the announcement in the paper but he passed no comment.

Luffy and Ace didn't understand; they were too young.

The boys slept together in the bunk Dadan had placed them in; the younger boy clinging on to the older child and his _very _distant cousin.

__

When Garp died, within a year of his purported daughter-in-law who Dadan will admit to liking way more than the man himself (She was the kind of person it was impossible to hate), he tucked a wriggling bundle of Ace under his arm and made his way to Fuschia village in record time.

(He smugly makes note of this as he _hates_ travelling and if you have to go somewhere then it's a hell of a lot better to go there as fast as possible.)

He never intended to stay there long but they never ended up leaving.

__

Some weeks after the funeral (if you could call it that, more of an excuse for marine posturing and _not_ what Garp would have appreciated at all. Dadan felt his drunken rant in the backyard would have made Garp guffaw happily just like he used to…) he huddled over a newspaper with Woop Slap wondering what the hell they were going to do now.

They couldn't become marines now.

Both boys were dead in the water as far as that plan went.

Garp wasn't there to protect them which changed _everything_.

Woop didn't like it (and neither did Dadan) but in all honesty they boys _needed_ to become pirates.

It was the best way to keep them safe.

This logic was painful so they whipped out the sake to continue the conversation.

It wouldn't do to underestimate Sengoku.

They would punish the children for the sins of their fathers if they found them

If they were exposed, Dadan would have two dead children and more nakama to grieve.

To kill a child….they really were those kinds of monsters.

__

Fortunately, the people of Fuschia were the sort of people that they needed.

There was a sense of an open secret in the sense that they knew that they were hiding but they didn't know what exactly or make any effort to find out.

It was basically said through Woop Slap; 'plausible deniability. Better no one knows.'

No one talked about it, no one asked.

It was simply Dadan with his charges little Ace and his baby brother Luffy.

They didn't want to know anything more than that.

They didn't seek to know more than that and if anyone came to seek them out they lied and covered their tracks.

The people of Fuschia remembered the young marine officer and his bemused wife.

__

Their house was situated close to a cliff, a small inlet beach, some wooded areas and most importantly is difficult for the casual observer to find.

It was small but practical, supplying all that they needed.

The insides are strewn with the marks of an all-male household.

(Dadan has at this stage, much to his eternal dismay, realised that he has become a housewife. He is convinced Garp is mocking him from the afterlife for this which necessitates another monologue on what a bastard the man was. He only realises that this is where the boys learn most of their coarse language when Luffy curses out the mayor.)

__

There are various things taped to walls.

Crayon pictures of the small family, townspeople and animals. (Both of the boys.)

Countless images torn from papers of pirates and marines. (Everyone)

A few subtle images of the revolutionaries. (courtesy of Dadan)

Maps from other parts of the world. (Generally from Ace.)

Together they constructed a collage of the entire world.

Even if they never left the island, Dadan never let them forget that there was a whole other world out there; one that was both wonderful and terrible.

__

At the door is essential luggage for each of them.

It is checked and the supplies adjusted once a week.

There are at least four planned escape routes from the house and another two if he throws caution to the wind and decides to wing it.

There are multiple ways off the island and more than two dozen places in East Blue alone that they could flee to at a moments notice.

If they have to flee however they'd leave East Blue entirely.

Both boys know the drills by heart but Ace is the only one who takes it seriously.

Dadan is resigned to this and accepts it as part of Luffy's inherent nature glad that he could teach him the more vital things at least.

__

_The first thing he taught them was secrets._

Ace was the son of Gol D. Roger.

Luffy was the son of Monkey D. Dragon.

For this utterly blameless fact they would die.

For being utterly sinless they were condemned to die.

It hadn't sat well with Garp or Roger.

It didn't sit well with Dadan.

And every day he thanked both of those troublesome bastards (wherever the hell they were.) that there were people in this shitty world that agreed with him.

Ace learned it quickly

_If people know they will kill you for no damn good reason._

He quickly began to foster a burgeoning sense of rage that could have become fatal.

Looking back Dadan realised that it was the first time that Luffy would save Ace.

Luffy (eventually) understood what a father was. (It came back to food so bloody much that there was no doubting he was related to Garp.)

But he didn't care.

He simply blinked and nodded accepting it as something that would not just hurt him but it would hurt Dadan, all of the people he liked and worse _it could hurt Ace._

Luffy honestly didn't care about parents afterall they weren't there but Ace and Dadan lived right there beside him.

Unlike Ace he didn't crave their presence or evidence of their love.

He had Ace (who he loved with a mindless devotion on the level of his dedication to the consumption of meat.) and Dadan (who was grumpy and scary but did all of the things that a mom and dad did for you so Luffy thought he was important then.)

This affected Ace deeply.

Dadan looked at him bemused when Ace asked him if maybe it would be okay to be like Luffy when it came to his parents because he loved his mother (the most awesome woman ever) and was curious about his father but _they weren't here and never would be_.

He told the anxious boy that living in the now was what any of their family would want for them.

"Your father asked Garp to take care of you. Not his first mate or any of his crew but the marine who chased him all over the ocean. Make of that what you will."

Garp certainly wasn't the kind of guy who had clung to the past but rather gleefully chased the crawling Ace around the yard of the place they had hidden before and Dadan will still say it now; _that kid was fast._

(Although in later years it became painfully obvious that with the right motivation Luffy was _even faster_.)

Exactly how much Ace listens to Dadan is unclear but he listens to Luffy and devotes himself to the younger boy completely to the extent that their guardian truly fears that if _they_ find either of them and one of them dies it would utterly destroy the other.

He is torn between praying that day never comes and waiting it out with fearful intensity.

He settles for cursing Garp again for leaving him to raise two energetic sons of infamous world criminals; all with 'D' in their names.

This thought is so depressing that he immediately gets himself a drink. Good stuff, not the piss that pirates are so fond of.

Unfortunately the bottle is missing.

Those damn brats.

___

Roger (that attention-seeking _moron_) left his son with a dreadful burden.

If they had been anywhere else things could have ended up outing them but fortunately the people of Fuschia validated their cautious optimism.

Ace wandered into Partys bar and asked about Gold Roger.

(Dadan nearly had a heart attack at this and swore to get even with Roger if he had to dig up his festering corpse and yes he was bitter enough to contemplate it.)

Woop Slap had ranted about 'no-good pirates' and the townspeople laughed and referred to Roger as 'one crazy-ass son of a bitch.'

Dadan was relieved. There were far worse things that Ace could have heard and this was far less likely to give him any sort of complex.

Ace was smart enough to see that Luffy was crazy, as was Dadan and he knew from stories that Garp had been nine hells of looney-tunes so 'crazy' he could accept and deal with.

(Not a day went by that Dadan wasn't heard cursing out some story of past insanity and calling Garp, Roger and everyone on the Grand Line all sorts of horrible names that cast aspersions upon their sanity, heritage and taste in clothing but not their mothers because Dadan did not approve of that.)

If perhaps, they had hidden somewhere else Ace would have heard worse things and the terrible things people said about Roger and his potential offspring.

If 'crazy' and 'scary strong' was the worst the boy would hear in his childhood then Dadan would never leave the island.

__

_The next thing he taught them was about the bonds between people._

'Look after each other' was what he said every single day.

When they ran off to play along the beach, visit Makino or run errands for him he told them that.

It was probably the easiest thing he had to do.

The brothers were bound tightly together.

Until the day he died Dadan would always treasure the moment where Ace sheltered Luffy and shouted rude words at him threatening their caretaker away from his little brother because at that moment it didn't matter that Dadan was the one that fed them, sheltered them and hid them from their enemies only that Luffy was upset and Dadan was at fault.

Those boys, it was their nature to draw people to them.

Dadan was glad that they were so close but shuddered at the thought of them setting out to gather up crews.

What kind of monsters would they attract?

__

_He taught them to survive in place of those who had already died for that reason._

Garp was dead.

Roger was dead.

Rouge did something incredible but then she died too.

Dragon was off lurking with budding rebellions all over the place. (which really, they all knew was for the best. Dadan knew Dragon well and what sort of man he was. Luffy had been left behind for the right reasons.)

And of course, that crazy, terrifying and wonderful woman had died not really that long before Garp. (one of the reasons Luffy had been 'relocated' so quickly; it had been suspicious.)

So it fell to Dadan who did not really feel up to the task.

He would argue that the blood of _that man_ was strong enough that they already possessed the most ferocious survival instincts in the world.

But who could he argue to? They were all dead leaving him as the only option.

……God. Damn. It.

Dadan didn't lie.

Certain things were marked as 'ask me again when you're older' but he didn't lie.

Ace knew about his parents as did Luffy.

They knew about Garp. (How could they fail to with Dadans frequent rants?)

They knew that their family wanted them to live and if they moped around Dadan would gleefully drop them off a cliff because he was kind of a dick like that.

Logic and common sense being totally lacking in both boys he simply started teaching them survival skills.

Ace picked up navigation.

Luffy got lost in the back yard.

He lectured them on danger and they both fell asleep.

Ace fell into his lunch every single day without fail.

Luffy was less reliable but he still did it with alarming regularity.

Dadan despaired that they were going to pick a fight and fall asleep in the middle of it.

He prayed for forgiveness and took inspiration from Garp; attacking them randomly whenever they slept.

At the very least he managed to _slightly_ train some danger instincts into them.

Both boys learned fighting so fast it was somewhat frightening.

He taught them both what he knew and bounced them both about the yard when they got cocky.

(Luffy didn't but Ace had a tendency he was determined to beat out of the boy.)

When the weather was acceptable they walked to the beach and swam in the waters.

Well….Ace and Dadan swam; Luffy seemed to be incapable of learning for some strange reason.

Dadan added it to his list of 'reasons why these boys are going to be the death of me and why I'm going to get revenge on that bastard Garp once I die.'

He taught them both about guns, knives and swords but refused to teach them lockpicking until he was sure that they were mature enough not to go robbing the padlocked chest where he kept those weapons……….or the pantry which the two conspired and mounted epic expeditions to raid on a near daily basis.

Ah, well. It gave them practise in traps.

__

_They learned of the world outside of their insular life._

Their bizarre collage only taught them so much so it was unsurprising that they sought out alternative venues of information.

Unfortunately, Dadan had been asleep so when he found out what was happening it was far too bloody late to do anything about it.

He learned by Luffy tearing into the house and barrelling into his stomach declaring that he was going to be a pirate.

He hadn't been too worried about this but when Luffy started babbling about the pirates that had made dock in the village he had both boys under his arms and was half way through escape plan #18936-A also known as 'Luffy gets us caught #3957'.

Then he saw the flag.

Dadan paused, went back to the house (both boys still under his arm) and went down to the tavern himself to investigate.

Why Shanks was wandering around here he had no idea but it was best to be sure.

He re-introduced himself by grabbing the man by the collar and dragging him outside and down to the ship for a private conversation.

Shanks _did_ actually remember the older man (from the execution precisely) and was happy enough to see him but then again Shanks was happy to see most people.

The first mate, Beckham, had joined them and they had a quick discussion.

The pirates were surprised that Luffy was related to such a famous (and occasionally infamous) Marine hero but easily gave a promise of silence on the subject.

Dadan claimed that he wanted to keep the boy out of sight until he was old enough to protect himself from those who would seek revenge on his grandfather through him.

This is not to say that Dadan told them everything.

Luffy resembled his grandfather a great deal so it was no hardship to openly admit that fact. He failed to mention his father though.

Shanks never met Ace. It was far too risky. Dadan had met the red head years ago and knew he was a former member of the Jolly Roger Pirates. The chance that he would recognise him was too high. All it took was one careless comment and the secret would be out.

Luffy was threatened into silence and never mentioned Ace to Shanks or his crew.

Neither did the townspeople.

Ace simply stayed at the house whenever the pirates were there and avoided them completely.

It would have been more difficult for such a boisterous and social child but he was cunning enough to realise that even if they meant no harm the pirates might inadvertently identify him as that mans' son.

The last of that line didn't care too much about his parents (Dadan and Luffy had managed to teach him some modicum of gratitude.) but it could cause trouble for Luffy and Ace would not have that.

__

Luffy quickly adopted Shanks as what Ace termed 'his official super cool and wicked awesome pirate big damn hero'

He returned daily shouting about the 'awesome' stories the red-haired pirate had told him and bemoaning the fact that they wouldn't take him on a voyage with them.

While Shanks was the sort to ignore _common sense and reason_, he wouldn't take a child on a dangerous journey.

Add to that the multiple inventive threats Dadan piled upon the younger man and there was little chance of him risking life and limb like that.

__

When Luffy came home after eating the devil fruit Dadan marched right down to the bar and pitched a jug at his head blaming the _careless imbecile_ for that.

He promptly left before returning to throw a tankard at Shanks' head 'for letting Luffy anywhere near a knife'.

Ben added it to his list of 'stupid things my captain does that I can look back on and laugh at.'

__

_They learned to fight._

He didn't do much, really.

For all of the time he spent teaching them to fight, he remembers more of when he would lie in the hammock with the sound of childish laughter drifting over him.

__

_Nothing would last. It was in their nature to go…_

Ace went first.

He craved the freedom of the open sea.

Dadan doubted the boy realised just how much he resembled his father when he declared that.

Luffy went down to the boat to wait while Ace said his goodbyes to Dadan.

His guardian didn't look up from his paper merely sniffing and telling him to put on a shirt because he was going to catch his death of cold one of these days.

Ace grinned and nodded understanding perfectly.

"_Don't die, don't do anything stupid and I'll be gone shortly after Luffy sets out."_

The two brothers said their goodbyes at the cape as the older boy set out. (for freedom, not One Piece.)

Dadan sat outside and puffed on his pipe contemplatively.

Not much longer now…

__

He didn't see Luffy off either.

He packed up luggage and food for the teenager and whacked him about the head warning him not to do stupid things before getting an expression of intense suffering and rolling his eyes and stomping off muttering about Garp, Roger, idiots and needing a drink.

Luffy grinned and waved goodbye declaring that he had no time to waste if he was going to be pirate king before tearing off, sandals slapping against the road.

__

Dadan sat for a while and looked at the collage on the wall.

It was covered in drawings, maps, bounty posters and newspaper clippings.

He decided to set out tomorrow. It had been too long since he visited Kuraigana island.

Both boys were gone now and they knew he wouldn't remain in Fuschia now that they were both off sailing. (As pirate which while inevitable was not good for his peace of mind.)

He packed up his belongings, the bottle of sake Garp had given him for his birthday and a few pictures wrapped up in the latest bounty poster for Ace.

The house he torched to remove any sort of evidence that could be used against them and after bidding farewell to Woop Slap he took off.

Those brats... were on their own now. But he knew well. That they could stand their own two feet.

Offering a prayer to the sanity of their crews Dadan continued on his way. He had his own business to take care of.


End file.
